Our kitchen manager, Erin, is amazing! Tonight is our last night living in our collective apartment together in Istanbul. Erin realizes that none of us have really had to shop here nor do we know how to cook.

She tried to mitigate the pain of being ripped from the womb with gift bags. So sweet!

Our roommate, Erin, created this amazing scavenger hunt that spanned all three sections of Istanbul: Europe, Golden Horn and Asia (that’s right, we can take a ferry to Asia).

It was an intense game that included gathering clues from different areas and also different people who we had to find. We broke up into three teams and ran around the city doing silly things like trying on Turkcell hats and Fenerbache clothing.

While putting this video together I had a lot of technical difficulties (iMovie hates me). I am looking forward to making more little videos and hopefully they will turn out a little better.

My friends and I went out on the town (and by town, I mean Taksim) and on our way back decided to sample what the street vendors had to offer.

Food Exploration in Istanbul

My friend, Meredith, and I woke up at sunrise to watch dozens of hot air balloons take off in the valley of Goreme. It was totally worth it to see these immense balloons get filled up with hot air and backed full of people as they transcended through space.

Walking in Cappadocia (Photo courtesy of Ben Hanna)

Well, despite my mother’s worst fears, I made it to Istanbul alive and well. My friend Susy picked me up at the airport after 24 hours of traveling and said, “take a shower, eat dinner and get packed because we are leaving at 4AM to fly to Cappadocia.”

When I arrived at our apartment I did just that and grabbed five hours of sleep before heading out on the next adventure.

We flew into Kayseri on Friday morning and had a minibus waiting for us to take us to Goreme where we had reservations at a hostel that was carved into a cave. Most of us were exhausted and lay down to nap for a couple hours until lunchtime. After lunch we walked to the open-air museum where we toured different ancient cathedrals cut into the rock. It’s pretty amazing to think that these caves were intricately decorated with carvings and frescos at one point.

Trail in Swords Valley

After an hour at the open-air museum we decided to hike through the open valleys of Goreme. It was quite an adventure to hike along trails and find small openings that led into cavernous rooms or tunnels that popped out on the other side of mountains.

I did a pretty good job of resisting jet lag, but by 9PM I was exhausted and passed out in bed only to wake up the next morning at 4AM. It was still dark out and nobody else was awake so I lay there until it began to get light outside and the call to prayer resonated from the mosque. I spent a couple hours on Saturday morning walking around and watched the sun rise over the hills of Goreme. It was great to have time along with my thoughts and take in the breathtaking scenery.

On Saturday a group of us rented scooters and toured the countryside of Cappadocia. We must have looked ridiculous to people who saw us coming down the road: five scooters and a dirt bike full of tourists dressed in random pieces of warm clothing. We traveled to various areas of fairy chimneys and climbed up on a rock that looked like a camel. We hiked through Rose Valley where there are a lot of ancient churches carved into the rock. At one point we hiked to the top of a plateau where there was a beautiful apricot tree blooming in the middle of the harsh terrain. We spent an hour just climbing the tree and basking in it beautiful blossoms.

Ben, Casey and Lucas at the Camel Rock

We ended the day by parking our bikes on a cliff and climbing up to sit on rocks that hanged over a 100 ft drop to watch the sunset.

For dinner that night we went to a restaurant recommended by a local CouchSurfer called Goreme Restaurant. It was a wonderful place. When you walk in you have to take off your shoes and step up to the sitting area, which is a pile of pillows on the floor. The food was good and the spiced wine was delicious! After a long day of riding around and hiking in the mountains laying down on comfortable pillows was the perfect end!

Sunday was just as adventurous as the previous days.

My friend, Meredith, and I woke up at sunrise and walked about a kilometer to where the hot air balloons were taking off. Cappadocia is famous for its morning hot air balloon rides. We were surprised to find dozens of balloons being filled with hot air and packed with about 20 tourists in the baskets. It was really fun to watch them hovering across the horizon.

Filling the hot air balloons at sunrise

For the rest of the day we rented a van to drive us around to al l the sites that were further away from Goreme. We explored the underground city, Derinkuyu, which is where the local people would go and hide while armies marched through the region in the 12th century. The underground city is over 100 ft down into the ground and has several airshafts that go as deep as the river that runs below it. It is a labyrinth of tunnels and rooms and it was fun to get lost down there. Although, the people back then were a lot shorter than we are today and it got annoying having to stoop the entire time we were in the city.

Jumping in Cappadocia

We had lunch outside of the valley of Ihlara and hiked through the park for a couple hours afterwards. It was really nice to get to spend time next to a river and enjoy the sunshine.

Mandy at Ihlara Valley river

We ended Sunday by going to a huge monastery carved into the side of a mountain called Selime Monastery. The price of admission is included in the ticket to Ihlara Valley. At one point a small group of us decided to climb all the way to the top of narrow steep stairs that were carved into tunnels. Parts of the tunnel have eroded and as we were climbing up we would pop out into an area that had no wall or handrail and was a couple hundred-foot drop onto rocks below. My fear of heights definitely kicked in and it was hard to get to the top. The terror was totally worth it though, because once we got to the top, the view was spectacular and the adrenaline rush only made it better.

We had a little drama getting back to Istanbul on Monday. We were supposed to fly from Kayseri to Istanbul in the morning, but it began raining and the airport doesn’t have IFR so they couldn’t land any planes and all the flights were cancelled. None of us speak Turkish very well, so it was quite the adventure figuring out how to get 10 people back to Istanbul. 15 hours and 4 bus rides later, we made it home without too much incident.

Meredith under the magic tree in Rose Valley